What's In Your Wallet

We've all heard that credit card commercial thousands of times. You know the one delivered by various movie stars who look you right in the eye as they ask, “What's In Your Wallet?” Meaning the wallet where you keep your money.

Surprisingly this time when I heard those words I got a little nudge (I was remembering Well Streets' recent reminder). So I literally went to my wallet to see what was in it. I'm sure what I found in my wallet is similar to typical things other people have...a drivers license, credit cards, AAA card, insurance cards and a small amount of cash. Now I understood the nudge...I needed to replenish my money.

We take things out of that money wallet daily to purchase things or to identify ourselves. If we are not paying attention to those items we can deplete our money like I almost did, overextend our credit card balance and even lose the items we use to identify ourselves.

I began to think about another type of wallet we have that often doesn't get consciously acknowledged. Our “heart wallet” which holds acts of love but not money. What is in one's heart wallet varies from person to person just like our money wallet. However, I think there are probably some similarities we share such as kindness, forgiveness, compassion, humility, and vulnerability to name a few. And just like when we are not tracking what is going in and out of our money wallet the heart wallet can also become depleted and needs to be replenished so we don't hurt ourselves or others.

I decided to take a few minutes to do some deep breathing, get quiet and check in with my heart wallet. I saw small ordinary acts...a text of support and encouragement to a friend in the hospital, a thank you note written to my Physical Therapist for his empathy and understanding and telling my sister I loved her during our phone call.

In random conversations I hear people express how difficult it is to keep their hearts open to give or receive anything because of their grief, anger, sadness, anxiety or depression during this chaotic polarized time in what feels like a heartless hierarchy. I can't think of a better time to expand heart consciousness than right now.

For some people a 21 day boost can be quite effective in slowly, safely and gently opening the heart. It would be interesting to notice what might be different on day 22. These are the four daily activities:

1) Write down 3 things you are grateful for
2) Engage in some form of exercise for 15 minutes
3) Take slow deep conscious breaths for 2 minutes
4) Send a note of gratitude or thanks (text, snail mail or email) to a different person for each of the 21 days
Or...anything you can do for 21 days that lights up your heart.

I invite my Youtropolis community, fellow custodians of heart energy, to join me in asking...What's In Your Wallet?